Labor is the largest expense on most projects. That means the more you know about labor costs—what they are, how to track them, and how they relate to productivity—the better.

By / Jessica Kirby

A fully integrated, robust timekeeping solution with interfaces for every application gives contractors a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The easier a timekeeper is to use and the more tailored it is to user needs, the more likely it is to provide managers and forepersons with real-time answers to the simple question: “How are my projects doing, and which ones do I need to focus my attention on?”   

“Labor is typically the largest expense on nearly every project,” says James Beveridge, CEO at BuildCentrix (BCX). “Tracking, monitoring, and understanding your labor data in real time equips contractors with a powerful means of controlling costs and productivity, while optimizing their labor force.”

BCX offers three different interfaces in its TimeCard module—one for the shop and two for the field. “The shop-specific interface, called Modal, is a pop-up that allows fabricators to go to any workstation, including an iPad or laptop, select their user icon, and enter their time—sort of a “tap and go” scenario,” Beveridge says. 

Because fabricators work on so many work orders during their day, this interface allows them to enter time as they go and not have to remember throughout the day and enter it at the end of their shift. Each shop administrator sets the time increments, whether they use shop codes, and how they track time, which could be by work order, by job, by labor code, or with any combination thereof. 

“It is super fast for the fabricators, it’s easy and quick for supervisors to approve time cards at the end of the day, and, of course, it creates a simple download and import for payroll clerks,” Beveridge says.

The Matrix interface is a faster and easier way to enter field data, which is typically done at the end of the day. It works for individual time entries and in combination with the Crews function. Forepersons set a crew in the admin area, adding all the people working in a crew, and then complete one time entry for everyone on the crew, again with the ability to break it down by job, phase, or labor code.

The Line interface is mostly used when users are simply doing basic time tracking by job and when they have each person entering their time. The simplicity makes it fast to enter hours at any point in the week, as required.

“Besides the huge benefit of being able to easily integrate into any accounting program, saving huge amounts of time for payroll, the real-time reporting is a huge benefit for field forepersons because they can look up total hours on all their jobs and focus on any that are having problems,” Beveridge says. “This is more efficient and accurate than waiting for all the reports from accounting to get done, and the simplicity reduces stress and helps to keep projects from going off the rails.”

When fully integrated into the shop and in the field, BCX TimeCard allows managers to pull data at any time to compare budgeted and actual time on each job and to share the data with the estimating department. Best of all, the TimeCard module can integrate into any accounting or ERP system, reporting software, or monitoring dashboard.

“By adding up all the features and customization, it’s easy to see how the BCX timecard is a far more robust solution for mechanical contractors than stand alone or generic timecard apps or software,” Beveridge says.

Learn more or schedule a free demo today at buildcentrix.com ■